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Toronto officer who allegedly Tasered and stomped on man mid-arrest makes first appearance before tribunal

The police sergeant charged with misconduct for allegedly using excessive force during a midday downtown arrest made a brief first appearance before a tribunal at police headquarters Tuesday morning.

Dressed in his full police uniform, Sgt. Eduardo Miranda told a hearing officer he understood the Police Act charges against him, both stemming from a Jan. 24 incident where he was captured on video appearing to Taser and stomp on a man mid-arrest at the corner of Dundas St. E. and Church St.

Waseem Khan was attempting to film an arrest by Toronto police and was told to stop recording or his phone would be confiscated. (Courtesy Waseem Khan/CityNews)

Police later said the man being arrested was biting one of the officers at the time, prompting them to deploy a Taser.

In the video, Miranda can be heard instructing junior officers to stop a citizen, Waseem Khan, from video-recording the arrest. “Get that guy out of my face, please,” Miranda says, gesturing at Khan, who is recording the incident on his phone from approximately 6 metres (20 feet) away.

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Other officers on scene then proceed to tell Khan he must move away, one of them urging him to let police “do what they need to.”

When Khan insists he has the right to record, two officers warn him that they are going to seize his phone as evidence, something they did not have the authority to do.

Officers caught up to the suspect in the Dundas and Church area Tuesday morning. Police say the officer had been responding to an assault call at another location when she was assaulted by the suspect. He then fled the scene.

Citizens have the right to record police performing their duties if they are not obstructing the officers.

“I’m not obstructing your arrest. I’m not involved in the investigation,” Khan can be heard saying in the video, later posted on YouTube. “I’m not getting involved.”

Miranda faces one count of excessive force against the man under arrest and one count of discreditable conduct for directing another officer to interfere with Khan’s lawful presence in the area and with his recording of the incident.

The officer, who is represented by lawyers Peter Brauti and Lawrence Gridin, did not enter a plea. His case is back before the tribunal next month.

The misconduct charges against Miranda result from Khan filing a formal complaint to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), the provincial police watchdog that probes complaints against officers.

Khan’s lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, told reporters Tuesday his client hopes the hearing results in some accountability for the officer.

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“Certainly Mr. Khan has issues with the officer’s conduct and he will come here and give evidence as to what he saw, what he heard, and what was said to him that he found to be offensive,” Pieters said.

Pieters stressed that a citizen’s right to record police is “crucial . . . particularly where the scale is tilted towards police officers.” In this case, he said, without the video appearing to show the alleged excessive force it would have been the word of the officers against the man who was being arrested.

Pieters added that Khan has concerns about the hearing being overseen by a fellow Toronto police officer. Hearing officers are typically senior officers chosen by the chief of police.

Pieters said Khan would prefer the case be heard by a retired judge, as has occurred occasionally at the tribunal. Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, for instance, tapped a retired judge to hear the police misconduct cases stemming from the 2010 G20 summit.

“We may move for someone else to hear the case,” Pieters said.

The OIPRD investigation also found misconduct by two other police officers for their statements to Khan during the video recording. One officer told Khan the man police were arresting was “going to spit in your face, you’re going to get AIDS.”

The widely condemned and inaccurate comments — HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is not spread through saliva — were among the most troubling aspects of the interaction, Khan told the Star earlier this year.

The OIPRD investigation concluded that two officers made statements that “brought discredit” upon the Toronto police service, but that the misconduct was of a “less serious” nature, meaning it is to be resolved informally and without a hearing.

According to police, the January incident began when Toronto police got a call indicating a man at Seaton House, a downtown homeless shelter, had spat on a staff member.

Officers located the man near Dundas St. E. and Dalhousie St., and when a female officer approached, the man spat at her and punched her, prompting construction workers nearby to step in; one of the workers was then bitten by the man.

After the man was placed in the back of a police car, he kicked out the back window, police said. “They tried to Taser him but the Taser didn’t work because he was wearing heavy clothing,” said Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash.

Khan had been in the area with his wife when he says he saw Toronto police reach into the back of a police car, then bring a man out onto the ground. He began filming because he “saw a cop kick this guy in the head.”

The encounter prompted a swift response from Toronto police, with Pugash calling the video a “teaching moment.”

“Let me be clear: we have told our officers if somebody is videoing them and they are not obstructing and interfering, they have every right to film,” Pugash told the Star earlier this year, shortly after the video was posted online.

Pugash said that while the vast majority of officers understand citizens have the right to record police, the video showed that “clearly there is more work that we have to do.”

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